(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the packaging of lengths of resilient material and particularly filamentary material. More specifically, this invention is directed to apparatus for coiling elongated resilient elements and thereafter retaining such elements in coiled form. Accordingly, the general objects of the present invention are to provide novel and improved methods and apparatus of such character.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
While not limited thereto in its utility, the present invention is particularly well suited for use in the packaging of strings for musical instruments. The discussion below will, accordingly, be primarily in terms of the solution of problems which, while not unique thereto, are particularly important to the packaging of such music strings.
Numerous apparatus and techniques for arranging filamentary material in an annular pack by forming it into a succession of superimposed generally circular loops have, over the years, been proposed and in some cases implemented. These prior techniques and apparatus have shared common deficiencies. With particular regard to those prior techniques and apparatus suitable for use in the handling of finished products having a high degree of resiliency, music strings for example, the principal deficiency has been the requirement for a significant amount of manual labor. Thus, in spite of numerous attempts to automate, the prevalent practice in the music string industry today is to coil the product by hand, manually "tuck" the ends around the formed coil so that the coil shape will be retained and thereafter either insert the coiled product by hand into a package or into a machine which subsequently accomplishes the final packaging. The cost of this hand labor may amount to as much as 40% of the total cost of the finished product. Further, the hand coiling of the music string product may result in excessive deformation which permanently damages the string. Additionally, points of direct finger contact with the product are potential sites of corrosion.